This invention relates to "no-till" row crop planter devices and more particularly to tilling blades and tilling blade drive means therefore in which passive rolling coulter or wheels are utilized as the power source for the tilling blade
The "no-till" style of planting is utilized where the soil itself has not been tilled prior to a planting operation and where individual furrows cut to a depth for receiving seeds are to be made in fields and on ground surfaces which have not been tilled previously by plowing or discing.
There are prior art "no-till" planters which employ a passive rolling coulter as the tillage device. A passive rolling coulter is totally dependent upon weight to obtain penetration into the soil snd consequently, such "no-till" planters have to be heavier than conventional planters. Passive rolling coulters provide practically no relative motion between the coulters and the soil and as a result, the coulter presses a furrow into the soil as it rolls along. Some relative motion (cutting action) between the soil and the passive rolling coulter can be obtained by shaping flutes around the periphery of the coulter. However, the fluted passive coulter requires even more weight to obtain penetration into the soil.
Power tillage allows the designer of the tillage equipment to control the relative motion between the cutting edges on the tillage blade and the soil. The power tillage blade is a tillage device which cuts (shears) layers of soil and lifts and pulverizes these layers of soil to make a furrow of some predetermined depth to receive seeds. The lifted and pulverized soil can be used to cover the seeds. The shearing and lifting action of the power tillage blade greatly reduces the weight necessary to obtain penetration as compared to the passive rolling coulter which depends totally upon weight to obtain penetration.
The power tillage concept has been developed on the premise that power can be derived from some prime mover such as a tractor which will both propel the machine and furnish power to drive the power tillage blade or blades. This, however, is one of the greatest problems encountered in making the power tillage blade compatible with row planting since each tillage blade needs to be independently suspended and independently driven in order that each blade can follow the uneveness of the soil beneath it. Mechanical drive trains, electrical motors and hydraulic motors have been tested and will function satisfactorily. All of these methods, however, experience the disadvantages of expense and power losses in making the transfer from the prime mover into the tillage blade.
A mechanism which uses a passive coulter to provide the power to drive a power tillage blade, if sufficient torque can be developed, would solve the problems attendant to the foregoing disadvantages of power loss and relatively high cost. Such a mechanism could make the power tillage system adaptable to all known "no-till" planting operations and could allow "no-till" planting to be used with crops and in areas where it can not presently be used because of inadequate pre-tillage devices.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and novel power tillage blade and passive rolling coulter combination in which the passive rolling coulter is the prime mover for the power tillage blade.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a novel passive prime mover and power tillage blade combination which optimizes the relative velocity of the power tillage blade with respect to the soil while minimizing the speed of rotation of that blade.
These and other objects of the present invention will become more fully apparent with reference to the following specification and drawings which relate to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.